


Snow Day

by asparagusmama



Series: The ragbag collection of stories of the Doctor and the Master's children [1]
Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who & Related Fandoms, Doctor Who (1963), Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: He's not the Master yet, Kid Fic, M/M, The Doctor is a bit of a rubbish father, and he's probably right, married, separated, shared parenting, so Koschei thinks
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-27
Updated: 2018-04-01
Packaged: 2019-02-22 08:00:57
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 2,295
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13162698
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/asparagusmama/pseuds/asparagusmama
Summary: Where are the daughters? Why did they not turn up to Kindergarten? Will their Father try their Papa's patience one time too many? Or are they just having fun, h'm?





	1. Chapter 1

Technician Sharron sighed as the communicator bleeped. She had come in early just so she could work on her own project. Her boss didn’t mind, in fact he encouraged it. She was working on interactive software toys for time tots that would explain the Vortex and Void in gentle but preparatory terms that might stop so many going a little bit loopy when they started at the Academy. Temporal mechanics was her thing really, but there would be no temporal mechanics without the Vortex, and it might be easier to traverse if it were less scary...

It bleeped again.

“Temporal engineering services. Technician Sharron speaking.”

“This is Kindergarten Supervising Teacher Aris here. I need to speak to your Coordinator. Is he in?”

Sharron sighed again and looked through the glass panel that separated her open office to his private one. He appeared to be in deep contemplation, his black-gloved hands steepled in front of his stylish black facial decoration. She stared at him, and he picked up her directed thought and looked up. She pointed to the communicator.

“Putting you through,” she said. Then went back to her calculations, sketches, and codes.

 

*

 

“Coordinator Koschei. Are your daughters ill?”

“No. Not as far as I’m aware. I left early for work. Their other father was to take them to nursery today. Have you tried to contact him?”

“The Doctor is not answering any calls.”

Koschei sighed deeply. “No. No. He wouldn’t be. Please send me any work you had planned for their classes. I will try to find the three of them.”

“This is the fifth time this term. Sharn begins the Academy next term. If this continues I will have to report this to both the Education and Capitol’s Children’s Senior Coordinators.”

“I can only apologise for my husband. He can be a little... distracted.”

“Oh. I know all about the Doctor, Coordinator, believe me!”


	2. Chapter 2

Koschei rushed around to the rooms he, until recently, had shared with the Doctor. He knocked first, out of politeness, after all, they had agreed to a trial separation. He’d gone home to his father’s estate, officially, but was spending most nights in his office. He rarely slept and besides, he had things to organise.

“Doctor? Girls?” he called as he let himself in with his voiceprint and palm scan.

For Rassilon’s sake! What in the name of the Other had happened? Had they been burgled? One of those damn Shobogan thieves that kept the Doctor’s practice going, he’d much rather defend a hopeless idiot than make money?

Or maybe a bomb had gone genuinely gone off? The Doctor could get very excited by the girls’ homework...?

Or perhaps the Doctor had not only given the girls’ nurse a day off, but had also decided the house bots needed some time off too. He had a tendency to anthropomorphise inanimate objects and tools.

He picked his way through the entrance lobby, picking up toys, shoes, and clothes, as he went, muttering under his breath at the messy state of the Doctor’s mind as he did so. He went to the girls’ room – their thick coats were missing, as were their fur lined boots. Had he taken them to Lungbarrow, or more probably the mountains behind his family estates? He hated his family.

In the kitchens he found the picnic hamper and thermos flasks missing. He also found flour, sugar, dirty baking sheets and mixing bowls, everywhere, as well as blobs of fondant icing of every colour up the walls and over every surface.

A picnic then. In the colds of the south. When they should be at kindergarten. When Sharn started the Academy next term and was having rolling assessments to ascertain where she would be placed. She was a Prydonian of the first order; she should be in the highest stream. What went on in their father’s mind? He knew they had promised each other the universe, but they chose parenthood first! Or rather, their families has chosen children for them, to control them, Koschei suspected at the time. But having made a commitment, they had the girls now and they came first. That meant responsibilities. Routine might be boring, but children thrived on it...

Donning his fur lined black cloak, Koschei left their rooms, fuming on the inside, a quiet, calm, exterior projected outwardly on his face and the front of his mind, in case he met someone influential regarding the Capitol’s children or the Academy.

*

At the public transmat terminal the technician confirmed that yes, a Time Lord with shock of white and blond, shoulder length, hair, and shabby brown robes, with no head covering, had taken a transmat to the most southern city with two small girls.

At the other end, a sulky Shobogan transit authority worker eventually, after a considerable bribe, as he knew the Doctor from childhood, confirmed that the Doctor had taken an air car and had headed south. It took another considerable sum to rent the only remaining air car and get the registration signature so he could track his children and spouse.


	3. Chapter 3

It was beautiful, Koschei had to admit. But then, he had always loved Lungbarrow when he visited as a boy. It was rarely, the Doctor usually stayed with him. The Doctor’s family were... odd, to say the least.

After he programmed the air car to follow the one the Doctor took, Koschei was free to look at all that lay beneath him. The dusty, icy, tundra wastelands full of Shobogan nomads and Time Lord and Technician drop-outs and the frost and snow sprinkled red grasses and spindly silver trees, before he passed over Lungbarrow and entered the polar Coldlands. The red and orange of the transudation barrier, the pinkish suns shining through the translucent shimmering, pale orange, skies reflected back from the blue-white snows. But beauty alone was no excuse for encouraging children to truant and not face their responsibilities. Didn’t the Doctor have any work of his own to do? He didn’t have to practice law, as his father wanted, if he was really so bored and unfulfilled, he had gone to a technical college after the Academy after all, he could work with exo-machines and repairs. Or even monitor the Vortex; he was an expert in thermal dynamics as well as his second time around scraped law degree...

Koschei was fuming at imagined excuses and the Doctor’s immature, irresponsible, attitude by the time he spotted the parked air car and three small figures, one larger than the other two, one very tiny indeed. He hoped the Doctor had wrapped Rosa up well.

*

“Papa! Look, it’s Papa!” Rosa yelled excitedly, clambering clumsily up from the snow, where she and her elder sister and father were all lying on their backs, frantically waving their arms about. “We’re making snow angels!”

“Papa!” Sharn said more warily, standing up abruptly and looking embarrassed a moment before schooling her features into a passive, controlled, face, as a child about to enter the Academy ought to.

Rosa stumbled across the snow and tugged at his arm, so he swung her up and hugged her tightly. “What’s a snow angel? Or any angel?” she asked, wrapping her cold fingers into the fur of his cloak.

“Koschei!” the Doctor stuttered out, climbing to his feet and slipping over. Koschei checked his impulse to rush over and help him up again.

“Doctor! What are you thinking of? I’ve had Aris contact me again! He is fuming this time, threatening the Children’s Coordinator’s involvement!”

“Ah. Hum. Yes. I mean...” the Doctor stumbled out angrily. Angry at his stuttered, almost non verbal response to Koschei’s telepathically directed anger that went over and above and around the children’s minds.

“It’s a snow day!” Rosa said happily. “We made a snowperson, it looks like you Papa, we gave him facial decorations and everything. We drink hot chocolate and eat something called marshmallows that Father got from Earth and some gingerbread we made this morning. It’s an Earth tradition. It means no Kindergarten! Father said you had lots of snow days!”

Koschei glanced over his youngest daughter’s head and caught the Doctor’s eye, the naughty glint and the flirtatious glance both, taking him back to their childhood and youth all in one go. Yes, they had run away to the Coldlands, more than once. They even built an igloo once, planning never to return to the Academy. Ushas found them before they both died of hypothermia and took them home in the air car she had stolen. Theirs had been buried in a blizzard. He smiled, despite himself.

“Show me the snowperson,” he said to Rosa, still looking at the Doctor with far more fondness and far less anger than he intended.


	4. Chapter 4

They stayed far longer than Koschei intended, as he had intended to get them straight in the aircar and back home as soon as possible. As it was, the girls and the Doctor played in the snow while he slaved the two air cars together and messaged Aris to explain that all was well and the girls would return to Kindergarten the following morning. He ate some gingerbread, which was very good, the Doctor was very good at baking biscuits.

The girls fell asleep in the aircar and they each had to carry a daughter through the transmat and through the walkways of the Capitol to their rooms. Naturally, as soon as they were laid in their own beds, the children awoke and started jumping on the mattresses, over-stimulated by sugar and cold, fresh air, and the change of routine.

It half looked like the Doctor was about to join them in the jumping. Koschei grabbed him by the collar. “You give them their baths. I'll clear up and make them supper and a warm, soothing, drink. What happened to the housebot and where is their nurse?”

“Oh. Callipsa is trying to study astro-temporal physics. I gave her the week off for revision before her exams.”

“And the bot?”

“It annoyed me. It was too bossy. I told it to go boil it's head. It... um. Yes, well. H'm. Best not, um, er... it's broken.”

Despite himself, Koschei laughed. “Oh, my dear Doctor, I love you, you daft, infuriating, stupid man!”


	5. Chapter 5

Sharn was woken up by the rocking off her bed and the rustling of her warm, cosy quilts. She bit a gasp and kept her eyes tight shut, pretending to be asleep.

It was no good, as a cold form clambered on top of her and clutched her nightdress, her unbrushed long hair falling over her face.

“What?” she murmured sleepily, pulling the bedding tight over the two of them, and moving her sister to lie beside her. As soon as she was more conscious she knew what it was. She strengthened her mental shields and smoothed Rosa's hair off her face.

“Grown up cuddling is making weird sparkles in my mind Sharn.”

“S'sh. Remember what Nurse Callipsa, Teacher Hoolie, and Coordinator Aris, tell us?” Sharn reached out and touched Rosa's psi points with her fingers, then pulled them away abruptly. Rosa had a huge telepathic ability, had since she was a baby. She had instantly sensed their fathers through the link with her sister and flinched. Darkness and power, pleasure and pain, love and obsession, grown up emotions overwhelmed her and scared her, and she was twice Rosa's age. Things had been peaceful since Papa had left, even if things had been horrible chaotic. You could live on sweets and have no bed time or routines for only so long as a child until you realised you needed a grown up. Sometimes Father wasn't very grown up. He was now though... she strengthened her walls even more and turned them into one way mirrors. Tentatively she touched her sister's psi points again.

“Build up your walls. Close your eyes. Imagine coloured balloons just as they teach you at Kindergarten. Layer them up...”

“They are all black! Black!” Rosa panicked.

“No they are not. They are white, like the snow today, and pink like Rabbit, and blue like your favourite robe...”

“Orange like the sky, pink like the barrier, red and gold like the suns...”

“Red and silver like trees...”

“Purple like the gingerbread icing we ate...”

Rosa's breathing was getting calmer as her father's unwitting psychic projections receded from her mind.

“Now, the front row of the balloons are silver, like mirrors.”

“Okay Sharn,” Rosa breathed out.

“Make them strong, at the front, and now... slowly, move your hands and brush away all the other balloons so I can share a story...”

Rosa nodded into Sharn's shoulder and waved her arms, and then pulled her rabbit close and began to suck its ear, “What's the story...?” she muttered.

“... Once upon a Time, a time of the Time Lords and not before, because they are the Dark Times, but long ago from now, the young Time Lady Poppins left to look after the children of the universe, as they had no telepathy so didn't know how they were loved...”

“Did she visit Jane and Michael?”

“Jane and Michael were unhappy humans, as their parents were concerned with silly things...” Sharn began, trying to remember how Papa told the old Earth stories... all the while, thanks to Rosa's power, she felt her parents at the back at her mind. She was glad they had made up and were back together. Papa had a temper, but never with them, and although he was frightening when he hurt Father, the last few weeks had shown Father was very useless without him. She had heard the whispers about the Doctor, and she hoped it wasn't true, that it wasn't bad blood, that human DNA, she was one quarter her grandmother, after all...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Maybe I should tag Balamory? - Brits who were small children or parents in the noughties know what I'm talking about ;)

**Author's Note:**

> I have a long novel sized fic to complete. Two, in fact, one in Doctor Who and one in Lewis fandom. People are waiting. but following a bit of a flare up (massive) I had four seizures in a row that seemed to punched out some little creative grey cells and a whole heap of mental and physical spoons. So here is a silly thing instead. comments appreciated, but don't mess with my Doctor/Master head canon, it's been with me since I was 7, and that is a good many decades ago, okay :)


End file.
